It’s So Easy

*The title of this post was taken from the Guns N’ Roses song of the same name*

A fair amount of time elapsed from the time Chris first sat down in a consultation with me until he decided to sign up and get started. We had several mutual friends in common and I’m sure it helped that Chris saw those friends get good results here at the studio.

One of the hangups was that Chris wasn’t really interested in exercise. Nothing about it seemed particularly intriguing to him. So, even though he wanted to lose weight and get his body in a better place, the thought of exercise was not desirable.

We would stay in touch via social media over those months and little by little, Chris was teasing the thought of getting started. Even when it seemed like he would begin, he shared his hesitation by stating, “We’ll see if I can stick with this…”

Chris began and we had a very candid conversation about what needed to happen with his food plan. Like many people, I think Chris felt he would try to adhere to the plan making as few changes as possible. Typically, that bites clients in the ass. Calling it what it is, you either decide your in or your out. Calories don’t discriminate.

However, by replacing copious amounts of soft drinks with water and getting the food under control, Chris started dropping fat mass very quickly. Not only that, he barely plateaued. In the 2 months since he started, he’s lost just shy of 20lbs. That may or may not sound impressive to you, but I will tell you this: I generally don’t see people who have as little fat mass to lose as he does lose it so quickly.

Chris is literally just a few pounds away from his maintenance goal and he did it in the blink of an eye. No flashy supplements, no über-intense exercise regimen, literally no gimmicks.

I must say, Chris has had it “easy.”

Now, Chris himself may not say it’s been easy for him to do. I believe some days he really had to deal with the fact that a certain amount of hunger was going to be the new norm for a while. Some days were easier than others.

I will also mention that since Chris didn’t have a history of dieting, his body may have just been agreeable with his efforts to drop. Should he lose sight of his goals and regain everything he’s lost, Chris might find himself in the position many others do. That cycles of dieting have a potential of not yielding as promising of results with each successive try.

While the body will continue to fight for homeostasis, many people on their weight loss journey can find it significantly more difficult to lose the same weight that Chris has lost in the same amount of time.

But please don’t forget that detail I mentioned above: Chris committed to the plan and he saw almost immediate results. For someone who was not very motivated to exercise, Chris has had enough momentum to make him a believer.

Once he hits his weight loss goal, we’ll boost his calories back up and let him adjust to a maintenance phase for a while. After a couple of months, we’ll start strategically pushing the calories up so he can slowly build some muscle mass back onto his frame. That part, I’ve told him, will be a much slower process.

So, back to the title of the post. Weight loss isn’t easy. It is one of the hardest things the average individual could ask their body to do. For no other reason than, it takes a lot of consistent effort to get you where you want to be. The more fat mass you have to lose, the longer you would feasibly be on that journey. The rules may be simple in theory, the execution rarely is.

For people like Chris, he can thank his genetics, his adherence to the plan and maybe a little bit of beginner’s luck. I have to say, his results have been incredibly inspiring.

You’d have to ask Chris how much he imbibed on that drink he’s representing in the picture below. 🙂